More Foreign Students Working in More Japanese Firms

Welcome to another episode on what's happening in/on/to Japan. I'm your navigator, Nathan Shiga.

It's that time of year Japanese college students start job-hunting and they say it's another sellers' market this year - even big companies have to compete for good materials. Some desperate ones offer a million yen bonus each for potential applicants to cover their last-year scholarships. These are big companies with sufficient funds to cover such expenses.

Meanwhile, medium-small enterprises are having hard time finding working hands. Here's another episode in the job-hunting season.

A certain medium-small company has come up with its own idea of recruiting workers - and so far so good. A metal-processing company, Kawashima Kinzoku Co., in Kawaguchi, Saitama, has about 50 employees and 4 of them are foreign students. Kawashima has long dealt with major manufacturers at home but many have moved their production sites overseas. Kawashima is now trying to explore direct contacts with overseas companies.

Having tried in vain to recruit potential Japanese resources. Kawashima then turned since three years ago to acquiring working hands from among foreign students. Norihiro Kitagawa, chief of Personnel Division, has this to say:

"There are many foreign students with high abilities. We contemplate advancing overseas and they prove to be very helpful."

Miss Lee, a Chinese ex-student at Saitama University Graduate School, manipulates her native Chinese and proficient English to do translation of documents and often accompanies the company's delegates to China to help expedite trade negotiations. She comments:

"I'm grateful for the opportunities to take part in the company's work this way."

Likewise, a number of medium-small Japanese enterprises are turing to foreign students for manpower. Meanwhile, the Japan Student Services Organization says about 65% of foreign students want to work for Japanese companies but only one half can actually do, say the experts.

Mansbu Kubota, director of the Foreign Students Assistance Network, points out a need for activating information interflow between the foreign students looking for jobs and the Japanese firms in need of working hands.

This certainly is a stone to kill two birds. Let's see this episode will draw enough attention to "activate information interflow".